Never Forget! and Meeting a Difficult Goal at Hillcrest

Written on 9-11-21.

        I watched some of the memorial coverage on NBC this morning, and I have watched every episode except the final one of Turning Point’s series on 9/11 on Netflix.  I plan on watching the last one later today.  It’s a sad anniversary, but I want to remember what happened that day, so I can honor all of the innocent people who died.  Never forget.  

I have re-educated myself on the events of that day and the aftermath, and it’s been eye-opening.  The Turning Point series has a narrative that is saying America’s leadership took it too far when we went into Iraq to go after Saddam and the “weapons of mass destruction” that were never proven to have been there.  Hard to argue that point.

The citizens of Flight 93 who charged the terrorists have my highest respect.  They sacrificed their lives for others, and they decided that within minutes.  Wow!

On to golf…

Eric and I had fun yesterday playing at Hillcrest.  I probably had a bit more fun, because I won the game we played, but I think he enjoyed it, too.  Not the losing, of course, but the golf, the course, and the weather.  We played the...

1, 2, 3 game, and I won with a score of 12 to 6.  Fairways were 2, greens in regulation were 3, and winning the hole was 1, just to reiterate.

We played with Roy (not his real name), and he was very cordial.  He was a lefty, and he was trying out a Ping G425 demo driver.  He only played the front nine with us.  After that, both Eric and Roy left me, and I played on with the two ladies who were in the group behind us.  

Eric and I planned to eat lunch together, but when I told the pro shop about our plan, they said they would not be able to get me back out again until just before 1:00, so I took a raincheck on the lunch, and Eric understood.

I shot a 47 on the first go-around, and that was what Eric scored, too.  When I played the front nine the second time (the back was closed due to aeration), I did much better.  I shot a 42 on the “back” for an 89.  Not much to write about, but I did have a feeling of such accomplishment that I had broken 90.  89 sounds so much better than 90.

I had two sand saves for par, and those gave me some redemption after hitting right behind the ball on hole #6’s bunker on the first go-around for a big number.  Those saves came on #8 the first time and on #3 the second time.

I do have to say I did not have a “legal” score on #1 the second time around.  I used my driver, and I hit a beauty up the left side of the fairway, but I never found it.  I dropped, and gave myself a handicap 7.  With more time to search, I would have found it, and the ladies only helped me look for a few seconds.  The group behind was breathing down our necks, so I had to abandon the search.

I had four bogeys and four pars on the “back” after that, though, and I met my goal of only one or two putts per green, but I missed the fairway and GIR goal by one each again.

Written on 9-22-21.

Golf has been pretty good to me recently.  I have done well playing against Eric on our putting green, winning most of the games we played the other night.  Then I won the 1, 2, 3 game when we played nine holes yesterday like I wrote above.  Those are wonderful, but I am mostly happy with meeting my goals during that round of four fairways and three greens in regulation for the first time.  Unfortunately, the putter didn’t work so well for this round, but I really felt a sense of accomplishment.  I have been trying to get that goal for a long time.  If I had putted the way I have been, I would have shot a 44 from the blues.  I had two three putts and a really rare (for me, especially) four putts on hole #3, and that is how I figure I lost four strokes to putting.  I also missed two of the fairways by just a few feet, because my golf balls ended up in the first cut.  I hit the first cut on holes #1 and #2, so I nearly hit all of them.  

Tonight, Herman (not his real name) came over to play on our green for the first time, and I used my home field advantage to beat him, too, in the “around the world” putting game (James gets credit for the idea for that game) and also in a final stroke play game that Melton created.  Eric came over, too, and they both won one game each.  Eric made a hole-in-one when he was warming up, also.  It landed in the farthest hole after one bounce.  I was surprised that Grant didn’t come this time.  He came the first two times religiously.